How do you like playing BAL?

How do you like playing BAL?

  • Total voters
    103
millossobek

millossobek

The 3-Stars Cup
19 December 2020
South America
Millonarios FC
Hi friends! Would like to ask what is your preferred playing stlye for BAL (Become a Legend)?

I'm playing 2 BAL's at the moment, with a Nigerian Center back in PES 2011, and with a South Korean midfielder in PES 2017, and I'm playing all matches. I can see advantages and disadvantages in this method. But before I go further with my observations, I'd like to hear your take, not only which one you choose, but also an explanation of why you choose your preferred style would be cool! :TU:

I'd also like to hear what is your favorite PES to play BAL, and why? Thanks in advance bros!
 
Bumping this thread a bit, if that's ok, so that more people vote. Would like to hear your take on what is your favorite way to play BAL! :)
 
Yo dude, just saw your Twitter message. I am not playing BAL the last...>??????? I can't recall, since PES 2009 or 2010..... It is not that i do not like it 100%. I could give it some time, if things were better, but for the below reasons i avoid it:

1) I don't like the rating system in PES, which is the most important factor in modern PES for player, i mean the evaluation you get after match for your performance. This pushes me to play strictly CF -or WF/SS, or AMF at best, since the game as for performance , rates mostly goals, assists, succesfull passes, successful dribbles. So it is very difficult if you want to play a non-scoring role in the team, aka CB, DMF, etc...

2) I don't like after the first PES BALs, that you can start in any team you want. In the very first you had to start in BABILAYNA CF, play 1 friendly match or 2 and based on your performance, you used to get 3 team offers... I would like this to exist as an option and the ability to start in any team you want, should be the extra step.

https://www.pesmaster.com/babilayna-cf/pes-2011/team/1883/

3) The CPU AI, i don't even speak about modern games that have terrible AI. Even in the past games, your AI teamates had some strange behaviour and some questionable AI...Ok this is not PES-exclusive... A lot of PvE games have this kind of 2 sets of AI. An AI-level for your CPU opponents, and an AI-level for your CPU-teamates...
 
Hey, I'm playing BAL in PES 2009, with my created Chilean player (J. Herrera). Currently, I'm in the fourth season, I play most of the matches, but I simulate when my player is tired (to recover Stamina) and also when there's an important match, so I can play it being fully prepared.

But it usually takes a month or so to do a whole season, I only play 1 or 2 matches per day.
 
Last (and first) time I played a bal was Pes 09 as well (must be something to do with the novelty factor, since they introduced it that year in the west). Created a right wingback named Cicero and inspired to the Classic imaginary brazilian of the old first ISSes of course. I had a fine enough first season at Lecce, in which i played all games, then completeley lost interest and never touched It again.
 
Madmac79 said:
Last (and first) time I played a bal was Pes 09 as well (must be something to do with the novelty factor, since they introduced it that year in the west). Created a right wingback named Cicero and inspired to the Classic imaginary brazilian of the old first ISSes of course. I had a fine enough first season at Lecce, in which i played all games, then completeley lost interest and never touched It again.
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cmon dude.... from all those Iconic Brasileiros, you picked Cicero!?? :P

Allejo, Gomez, Beranco, Ferreira... Cicero?? Sounds more Italian than Portuguese to be fair!!! :D
(just kidding of course :) )
 
slamsoze said:
cmon dude.... from all those Iconic Brasileiros, you picked Cicero!?? :P

Allejo, Gomez, Beranco, Ferreira... Cicero?? Sounds more Italian than Portuguese to be fair!!! :D
(just kidding of course :) )
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Ahahaha you aren't wrong, there certainly were brighter stars to pick. But for some reason I can't really remember, and even tho it was a bit counterintuitive, since one usually picks a more attacking player in such a mode, I was fixated with doing that bal thing with a right wingback, and since I've always admired Cafu as a player but didn't really want to recreate him (he was freshly retired in real football and, you know, one of those two teams he played in Italy with.. :P ) I ended up recreating his "inspiration" in Iss.
 
Oh but you know guys, Brazil has a very large population of people with Italian roots! I've heard some stats that say that 11% of Brazil's population has Italian ancestors! (24% of Brazilians with European roots!) For example, talking football only: Thiago Motta, Rivelino, Dunga, previous manager Scolari, there are so many, so I think Cicero works perfectly! :TU:
 
Oh, and BTW, I forgot to respond about BAL! @slamsoze you're right, I think the way teams approach you, based on performance, is a great system instead of picking your own team.. But for example, in PES 2017, it's kind of a different system. You get to choose the league you want to play in, but not necessarily the team. I am playing with a Korean midfielder, and I decided to start out in the J-League, and the game assigned Oita Trinita! (one of the weaker teams in the league, so I think that's cool)..

@Edge Hex wow, so one month per completed season..... That sounds long, that means that probably it would take more than one year to finish a complete career! haha.. That's my only problem with BAL, the sheer length of it! So right now I am trying to decide how I should play it..

@Madmac79 I'm wondering bro, what made you lose interest in BAL? Was it the length, or maybe the repetition of it?

Thanks for your responses bros, let's keep it going! :)
 
millossobek said:
Oh, and BTW, I forgot to respond about BAL! @slamsoze you're right, I think the way teams approach you, based on performance, is a great system instead of picking your own team.. But for example, in PES 2017, it's kind of a different system. You get to choose the league you want to play in, but not necessarily the team. I am playing with a Korean midfielder, and I decided to start out in the J-League, and the game assigned Oita Trinita! (one of the weaker teams in the league, so I think that's cool)..

@Edge Hex wow, so one month per completed season..... That sounds long, that means that probably it would take more than one year to finish a complete career! haha.. That's my only problem with BAL, the sheer length of it! So right now I am trying to decide how I should play it..

@Madmac79 I'm wondering bro, what made you lose interest in BAL? Was it the length, or maybe the repetition of it?

Thanks for your responses bros, let's keep it going! :)
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Yes mate, pardon me if i ignore the straight development, since the 2009, i've only played the pes2014ps2 BAL a little bit and then again in 2018? I mean here and there, so i am missing a lot info how it plays..
 
The ideal BAL for me, would be to base it in ISS2000 for N64 formula, but with current PES standards, in regards to league quantity.

I don't know if you've played the Player Career in ISS2000, a very early BAL, you started in a complete generic neighborhood team, playing in either a training 11vs11 exhibition, or a friendly match, amd you had to perform well, in order to earn a position in starting 11 for an "official" match, against fictional clubs of course. It had a lot RPG aspects, like date a girl, befriend your teamates and the coach.

The final mission i assume was to earn a summon for your National team.

I not sure if and how you could play for your natiom, IE a world cup???

Due to i didn't own an expansion equipment needed, a hardware for N64, i think memory pack, i always was playing only as long as the console was switched on, so never achieved to progress till the end... :)

But what i mean... All these situation was a combination of passion of KCEO and the limitations of ISS, only National Teams etc.... But imagine this structure in a more "modern PES", even PES 3, you start from. your local team, as an amateur, and your mission is to play for one of the existing big clubs and your nation.

It would not even need a ton of fictional clubs,. i assume two lower divisions of 6~8 generic teams would be efficient enough, to compete and develoo, in orfer finally to achieve a professional level in, the classic the, traditional master league structure, D2 with 8 clubs and D1 with 16, etc, etc...

And i don't even expand to the most modern ML sets, after PES 2008, or after PES 2013..Tge possibilities would be infinite.
 
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millossobek said:
@Madmac79 I'm wondering bro, what made you lose interest in BAL? Was it the length, or maybe the repetition of it?
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You know mate, in all honesty I don't precisely know, it's hard to pinpoint a single thing. I was pretty pumped reading people's adventures, on an italian forum, with Winning Eleven 2007 version of it, when a proto BAL first came around (the Fantasista) and I couldn't get that version so all I had was other peoples recounts.. so I was expecting it with some kind of curiosity mixed with hype. I guess I had moderate fun in that first season but the general lack of depth to it and the very specific nature of the mode (controlling always the same player) got the best of me.

Considering controlling all the eleven players will always be my favourite way to go, maybe I'll give it a shot again sometimes in the future, who knows :) ?

slamsoze said:
The ideal BAL for me, would be to base it im ISS2000 for N64 formula, but with current PES standards, in regards to league quantity.

I don't know if you've played the Playet Carrer in ISS2000, a very early BAL, you started in a complete generic neighborhood team, playing in either a training 11vs11 exhibition, or a friendly match, amd you had to perform well, in order to earn a position in starting 11 for an "official" match, against fictional clubs of course. It had a lot RPG aspects, like date a girl, befriend your teamates and the coach.

The final mission i assume was to earn a summon for your National team.

I not sure if and how you could play for your natiom, IE a world cup???

Due to i didn't own an expansion equipment needed, a hardware for N64, i think memory pack, i always was playing only as long as the console was switched on, so never achieved to progress till the end... :)

But what i mean... All these situation was a combination of passion of KCEO and the limitations of ISS, only National Teams etc.... But imagine this structure in a more "modern PES", even PES 3, you start from. your local team, as an amateur, and your mission is to play for one of the existing big clubs and your nation.

It would not even need a ton of fictional clubs,. i assume two lower divisions of 6~8 generic teams would be efficient enough, to compete and develoo, in orfer finally to achieve a professional level in, the classic the, traditional master league structure, D2 with 8 clubs and D1 with 16, etc, etc...

And i don't even expand to the most modern ML sets, after PES 2008, or after PES 2013..Tge possibilities would be infinite.
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Yeah they could have EASILY made it much, much better than they did and that's what I'm mostly sad about. Imho it's hard to hook the majority of people on a mode of this kind if you don't offer more stuff all around, on the field and out of it. It's all so barebones, dammit. The rpg stint of ISS 2000 was so promising and on the right track, I can imagine a lot of ways to expand on that; like rivalities with opponents, relationships with the press and the rest of the football world (like coaches, staffs etc.) .. this kind of things. Stuff that would make you feel you are really going forward with a player's career.

But, yeah, Kcet and their heirs were superb on the field things, but kinda limited on the outside portion of it. Even ML could have been way better than it was in the best Ps2 years but it's another matter oc.
 
I honestly haven't played BAL in a while, I played it mostly on PES 2009. But if I take it seriously, I tend to play more than skip. A lot of people think it's boring, but I liked the training matches in that one and '10 because you really are working for your place in the first team instead of just waiting for the coach to make up his mind about you. I skipped some to make it go faster, but the problem with skipping in BAL is that it's not as consequence-free as in the Master League, you actually do risk losing the manager's favor by skipping too much; I did this as an experiment on PES 2012 - actually to see how my little mod worked in it - and I got a Game Over at the end of my first season, because I got released from not playing and no other team would take me.

slamsoze said:
The ideal BAL for me, would be to base it in ISS2000 for N64 formula, but with current PES standards, in regards to league quantity.

I don't know if you've played the Player Career in ISS2000, a very early BAL, you started in a complete generic neighborhood team, playing in either a training 11vs11 exhibition, or a friendly match, amd you had to perform well, in order to earn a position in starting 11 for an "official" match, against fictional clubs of course. It had a lot RPG aspects, like date a girl, befriend your teamates and the coach.

The final mission i assume was to earn a summon for your National team.

I not sure if and how you could play for your natiom, IE a world cup???

Due to i didn't own an expansion equipment needed, a hardware for N64, i think memory pack, i always was playing only as long as the console was switched on, so never achieved to progress till the end... :)

But what i mean... All these situation was a combination of passion of KCEO and the limitations of ISS, only National Teams etc.... But imagine this structure in a more "modern PES", even PES 3, you start from. your local team, as an amateur, and your mission is to play for one of the existing big clubs and your nation.

It would not even need a ton of fictional clubs,. i assume two lower divisions of 6~8 generic teams would be efficient enough, to compete and develoo, in orfer finally to achieve a professional level in, the classic the, traditional master league structure, D2 with 8 clubs and D1 with 16, etc, etc...

And i don't even expand to the most modern ML sets, after PES 2008, or after PES 2013..Tge possibilities would be infinite.
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I think, the closest anyone did to this was Sega with Virtua Pro Football. Check it out:

I personally don't care for the more "personal" stuff you do when you're not playing (I think they detract from the game itself and can feel borderline useless for me - it's the same thing I have with FIFA Manager), but it does look like a pretty good Career Mode.
 
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Hey guys, i am doing a season online with a friend through Parsec, which is great!

Basically we each created our own player in BAL, then exported it and added them to the same team, we then started a Master League with that team and play with Fixed Cursor (each one of us only use our own Player like in BAL).

I would suggest this to everyone who has a friend to play with!

Now, our issue is that our teammates are retarded, sometimes they just ignore the ball(especially when the opposition has the ball) .. anyone has tried a good Gameplay mod to reduce/fix those issues?

Thanks
 
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TheKusanagiBlade said:
I think, the closest anyone did to this was Sega with Virtua Pro Football. Check it out:

I personally don't care for the more "personal" stuff you do when you're not playing (I think they detract from the game itself and can feel borderline useless for me - it's the same thing I have with FIFA Manager), but it does look like a pretty good Career Mode.
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This is hilarious! :LOL: :LMAO:

I will roughly translate: The player approaches the manager, he's feeling down because he's having problems with his girlfriend, you get three options about giving relationship advice, (including: the manager talks to the girlfriend hahahaha), and and now he's feeling better. :LOL:

I actually like the off-match stuff, I agree with @Madmac79 since I think it adds to the experience, but sometimes it can be a little silly. This cracked me up though.

For one, I wouldn't mind more press conferences, interviews, etc in BAL. :)

@slamsoze That model of starting in a "neighborhood" team I love! That would work so well in PES, like you said the possibilities would be endless! That would truly make it a complete BAL experience, starting out in your city as an amateur player! :TU:
 
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millossobek said:
This is hilarious! :LOL: :LMAO:

I will roughly translate: The player approaches the manager, he's feeling down because he's having problems with his girlfriend, you get three options about giving relationship advice, (including: the manager talks to the girlfriend hahahaha), and and now he's feeling better. :LOL:

I actually like the off-match stuff, I agree with @Madmac79 since I think it adds to the experience, but sometimes it can be a little silly. This cracked me up though.

For one, I wouldn't mind more press conferences, interviews, etc in BAL. :)

@slamsoze That model of starting in a "neighborhood" team I love! That would work so well in PES, like you said the possibilities would be endless! That would truly make it a complete BAL experience, starting out in your city as an amateur player! :TU:
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No, he's talking to you, he's your teammate. xP
 
Thing about BAL in the long run is, at least in PES 2011 and 2017, it seems like kind of a grind to play every single match with seemingly little consequence. You have to be very patient in order to see real results overtime. Like @Edge Hex mentioned, if you play 1 or 2 matches a day, then you can finish an entire season in a month, and that's definitely a long haul! So right now I'm playing with Nigerian defender in the Bundesliga (FC Koln) in 2011 and a South Korean midfielder in the J-League (2017) but would like to speed things up a bit without having to lose elements which make the mode fun to begin with. I, for one, wouldn't mind more off the pitch elements to flesh out the player's personality!
 
@Blashy That idea sounds really, really cool. Playing a "Co-op Career" must be much more fun than a singleplayer career. In what positions are you playing?

@millossobek Yeah, it's a little long. I've played 2 careers before my ongoing BAL, with 2 different created players, and it took me one year and a half to retire (for each one of them).
But I would like to speed it up as well, haha. Specially to try playing in other positions, like a defender (as your Nigerian player).
 
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millossobek said:
This is hilarious! :LOL: :LMAO:

I will roughly translate: The player approaches the manager, he's feeling down because he's having problems with his girlfriend, you get three options about giving relationship advice, (including: the manager talks to the girlfriend hahahaha), and and now he's feeling better. :LOL:

I actually like the off-match stuff, I agree with @Madmac79 since I think it adds to the experience, but sometimes it can be a little silly. This cracked me up though.

For one, I wouldn't mind more press conferences, interviews, etc in BAL. :)

@slamsoze That model of starting in a "neighborhood" team I love! That would work so well in PES, like you said the possibilities would be endless! That would truly make it a complete BAL experience, starting out in your city as an amateur player! :TU:
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Well by "neighborhood" = It is actually a fictional local team, due to ISS 2000 limitations. The game that achieved the best expanded pyramid, except for FM/CM manager games of course, was THIS IS FOOTBALL, with that ML-mode, that starts from local/college level.

But with today's technology, it can be reproduced with much better accuracy.

Also as people say here, i am very glad if the BAL mode in PES games pre-2014, have the possibility to play training-friendly matches, and make you to perform in well, in order to earn a position in starting 11.
 
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Edge Hex said:
@Blashy That idea sounds really, really cool. Playing a "Co-op Career" must be much more fun than a singleplayer career. In what positions are you playing?
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Because i think that our team's AI is quite bad, i figured that one of us should be CAM and another one some kind of Striker.We play with a 4 3 1 2, so me being the Center Advanced Midfielder, I can link up the play between field areas and accelerate/slow down our possession when needed.
 
I don't play BAL mode but I do play League mode with fixed-cursor (so I'm controlling only one player per match but I always choose the same player - ie. I put myself in the game). I like playing this way because you are effectively the player-manager - so you pick the team, tactics, subs, etc. and are then hoping your tactics work and are relying on your team-mates to perform but you're also playing in the match, so can be the extra man in defence or attack when needed.

If I remember correctly, with regular BAL mode, you don't get involved in the tactical/management side, you just wait to get picked and then it's the same formation and tactics every match and you can't alter things during a match? I do remember finding it got very repetitive and boring.

By a country mile, PES18 is the best for his (although PES17 was also good) - I've just started playing it again after a long break and it's still joyous. The AI is so much deeper and more varied than PES19 onwards.

No matter what happens with eFootball (the latest info and gameplay clips give me the impression it's a very basic game with no depth), I'm glad I'll always have PES18 fixed-cursor to go back to. Ironically, I don't like PES18 much using normal switch-cursor mode.
 
Edge Hex said:
But I would like to speed it up as well, haha. Specially to try playing in other positions, like a defender (as your Nigerian player).
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I think I might try play one match, simulate one match.. :) That way it'll be a bit faster yet at the same time I feel like I'm in control of my career. Might resume my PES 2011 career with my Nigerian center back, I just accepted a transfer from FC Koln to Arsenal, where I will go from a everyday starter to perhaps a bench player. Let's see how it goes!
 
Well, I'm quite late to this again. To be honest, I can't give a straight answer on why I play all the matches, probably because I only play in my free time so I can enjoy the entire 90 minutes (In case those greedy managers even give you a chance to play lol). I only enjoyed two editions of BAL, three if you exclude PS2 titles. PES 2009 and PES 2016 but all I can remember is the latter because it was my most played PES title and because I have a lot of memories with it haha, I had a very difficult season with Celta Vigo, half of the season, I barely made any appearance, but the next season things have flourished. But as @slamsoze said, your one chance is to play as a forward.

I also like the neighborhood idea, I instead used to create a school team made out of the best players we had in PES 2012 and 2013 (not a flex but I was their main winger haha)
 
Is there some combination of gameplay & tactics (maybe in combination with mods adding leagues, kits, etc.) that change Become a Legend so it's somewhat realistic and enjoyable? So many teams play nonsensically, the AI teammates are no help on attack, defenders concede because they just stop running, etc. All the issues with PES' AI feel like they're amplified when you only control one player.
 
Causebot said:
Is there some combination of gameplay & tactics (maybe in combination with mods adding leagues, kits, etc.) that change Become a Legend so it's somewhat realistic and enjoyable? So many teams play nonsensically, the AI teammates are no help on attack, defenders concede because they just stop running, etc. All the issues with PES' AI feel like they're amplified when you only control one player.
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yes, i feel the same way...it's almost unplayable after you get used to it
 
millossobek said:
What would you guys say is the best PES to play BAL in and why? Would love to hear your explanations/descriptions. :TU:
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Well, that depends a lot if we take in count the personal taste and the general user's preferences. From a gameplay perspective an opinion could be very subjectively divided, as some would like more the PS3 versions, and others will like more the last Fox Engine games. From the general experience perspective, I think that objectively we can all agree that PES 2011/12/13 trilogy had the best and the most polished ML/BAL ever in terms of content/presentation and the general "flow" of the game related to playthrough: best cutscenes, options, and overall experience that was polished (at its highest peak).

For example now I'm playing both ML/BAL on PES 2021 with PARMA (Serie B) as a Manager in ML, and also with a created BAL player on Wigan Athletic (Sky Bet Championship). Even if I saw improved the general feel on the field someway with a nice gameplay mod (that I've posted some weeks ago in the PES 2021 PC thread), the other part related to the general experience feels very bland, boring and unrewarding: with the same recycled content as news, popups and the progression in the game like: "you're prepared for the next match, be ready", "we think you'll win", "everybody is happy at the club". Seeing those things on the screen all the time just bores me to the ground. I continue playing those versions just for the sake of graphics, or finishing the season to eventually go to a new club/team, and win different competitions. "Lack of content" and "recycling" I think are the best words to describe ML/BAL on those last fox engine iterations, so for me obviously the best offline content related to the BAL experience is on the PS3 last trilogy versions.
 
I have played a bit of BAL lately on 2021. I think it's pretty good actually, playing in 10 minute games not to draw things out too much (usually play 12 min). The AI is alright, I remember it being a lot worse in some earlier versions. I do have to play on Professional though, although I play the rest of the game on top player. A funny thing in BAL is that the team mate press is actually still active, so you can instruct players closest to the ball to press. It's come in handy too, wildly unrealistic as it is. I am playing in Leeds as an SS and Bamford is deadly. I also found it funny that I got the call to the Icelandic national team to play as a lone striker and they just hoof a longball in my direction every time. Not terribly fun football!
 
Thanks for your opinions guys. :) I agree with @etb10dmk that 2010-13 is perhaps the best BAL in terms of content, even if 21 is graphically at another level. I've wanted to start a BAL for a long time, I think I might do it in PES 2010-13, Thing is, I usually like playing 15-20 minute matches but that seems a bit long for BAL. I think I'll settle for 10 mins, just hope that I'll have enough realistic-scoring games. I think maybe 13 is the most offensively geared out of all of those installments so I'll probably go with that one. I really wanted to continue my Peter Okbepe BAL as a Nigerian CB but unfortunately playing as a CB is a bit too inactive.. So maybe I'll try creating an Asian DMF or something like that. :)
 
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